


a dialogue, not a fight

by redluxite (wordstruck)



Series: VLD One-Shots [3]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Allusions to Violence, M/M, Matt Holt (deceased), Pacific Rim AU, Past Character Death, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-05
Updated: 2017-12-05
Packaged: 2019-02-10 21:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12921072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordstruck/pseuds/redluxite
Summary: Keith almost rolls his eyes. “What did you think?”“You’re… unpredictable,” Shiro says, trying to be diplomatic. When Keith just stares at him with eyebrows raised, Shiro huffs out a laugh. “Fine. You’re volatile. You constantly deviate from standard protocols and combat techniques. You take risks that put you, your crew, and your surroundings in danger. You couldn’t hold a partner for more than a year.”Keith snorts, rolls his eyes. “I have a ten-kill hit list.”“I know.” Shiro grins. “I never said you weren’t good.”Or, a short Pacific Rim AU.





	a dialogue, not a fight

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a commission piece for [@ssumafo](https://twitter.com/ssumafo) on Twitter, who asked that I expand on the [Sheith Pacific Rim AU thread](https://twitter.com/okw_tr/status/930100167390388229) I made on Twitter. Keeping this under 2k words was a struggle alskdkkajk.
> 
> May or may not add to this later on because I love Pacific Rim AUs, ngl.
> 
> Matt Holt is Shiro's former Jaeger co-pilot; this story alludes to his death in the same Kaiju fight that cost Shiro his arm. Keith is a Garrison prodigy Jaeger pilot who has issues and can't keep a partner. But hey, they make it work.

 

 

 

Five years ago, almost everyone would have pegged Shiro as a champion fighter. One of the Garrison’s top pilots, the Jaeger program’s poster boy, the wonderkid.

 _Shiro the Hero,_ they’d called him.

With the Voltron Jaeger, he and Matt had had six Kaiju kills on their list. On their watch, the California line had gone unbreached for three years, until it hadn’t.

 

Shiro remembers. Those kinds of things, they stick.

He still wakes up some nights to the sickened feeling of someone being _there_ in his head and then _not._

The winter starts to roll in. The cold makes his skin sting where it meets the metal and plastic of the prosthetic arm.

He lets it hurt.

 

He keeps his distance from the Garrison, the Jaeger program. They don’t look for him. He changes the channel whenever anything shows up on the news.

The emptiness of Matt’s room almost hurts more than the cards that Mr. Holt still sends every Christmas.

 

At the peak of the Jaeger program, the pilots had been rock stars. Shiro had been so uncomfortable sitting for interviews, posing for photos, seeing himself plastered on magazines.

The thing about being the poster boy for success is that it makes you an easy poster boy for failure. _Pilot error_ is as good a reason as any for the failure of a three-Jaeger mission, as the program finds itself on shakier and shakier ground.

These days, nobody recognizes Shiro on the street anymore, which is fine by him.

He’s not a hero.

  


Allura finds him in Santa Monica, picking up shifts on the coastal wall project.

Not that the wall matters, not after they’ve just seen a Kaiju smash through it like it’s tissue paper. Shiro turns away from the news and walks out of the crowd of construction workers, into the cold. It takes him a moment to realize the gale whipping at him isn’t from the weather.

The helicopter lands some distance away from the construction site. Shiro can already guess what it’s here for.

Allura exits the helicopter gracefully, one hand holding her hair in place. She doesn’t seem at all surprised to see him there.

“Shiro,” she says, polite as you please. “It’s been a while.”

“Allura,” he parries. “You look well.”

“Indeed.” Her smile is thin and sharp, a scalpel blade. No pretenses. “Can I have a word?”

 

“You were rather difficult to find,” she comments, once they’re inside the relative warmth of the warehouse. “I had to chase you across a few cities.”

“Been moving along the wall.” Shiro shrugs. “Gotta make a living. What do you want?”

Allura looks at him for a long moment before she answers. “I’ve spent the last half year activating anything and everything we could get our hands on. Like an old Jaeger, a Kerberos unit. You might know it.” She raises an eyebrow. “It needs a pilot.”

Shiro snorts. “Doubt I’m the first choice here.”

“No, you are.” Allura leans against a pile of scaffolding. “In fact, you’re my only choice. The other Kerberos pilots are dead.”

This time Shiro takes a while before responding. He sighs, long and heavy; runs a hand through his hair. “Look--” He breaks off, bites his lip. “I can’t have anyone in my head again. And after the Garrison pinned all that on me, I can’t see why you’d want me.”

He shrugs, drops his shoulders, his head. Exhales sharp and pained.

“Haven’t you heard, Shiro?” Something about Allura’s tone makes Shiro look up. There’s the tiniest of smiles at the corners her eyes, her mouth. “The world is ending. So where would you rather die? Here, or in a Jaeger?”

  


The new base is at Kowloon Bay.

“The Garrison’s cut all funding for the program,” Allura tells him on the way over. “They let us transport the last Jaegers here, but other than that we’re on our own.”

“So we’re the cavalry,” Shiro quips, smirking.

“No.” There’s a twinkle in Allura’s eyes. “We’re the resistance.”

 

She takes him straight through the hangar to where they’re restoring his old Jaeger. They pass by the other units that are still active, other pilots. Shiro recognizes Ulaz and Thace, their Marmora Jaeger. He knows Pidge will be somewhere in all this, up to her elbows in Kaiju parts. He has half a mind to ask Allura, but saves it for later.

Voltron looms over them, looking almost like new.

Allura beams up at it. “She’s been almost completely done over. Keith tells me she’s got a whole new core, the newest tech.”

Shiro tears his attention away long enough to ask, “Keith?”

“Me,” says a voice from behind them. Shiro turns around to find a young man standing behind them, red jacket and a mess of black hair. He gives Shiro a once-over, then turns to the Jaeger. “I’m the mechanic.”

His scrappiness makes Shiro smile. “I’m the pilot.”

Keith sneaks a glance out of the corner of his eye. Shiro could swear he looks _amused._ “I know.”

 

If Keith thinks Shiro doesn’t recognize him after five years, he’s sorely mistaken. He just doesn’t know why the Garrison’s prodigy is out here working as a Jaeger grease monkey.

He’s only mildly surprised to find that when he steps into the gym -- when he can’t sleep, when he goes to quiet the restlessness under his skin -- Keith is already there.

In just a tank top and loose pants, he looks stronger than Shiro’s first impression. Keith startles a bit at the sudden intrusion, expression wary when he realizes who’s there.

“I don’t think I got to introduce myself earlier.” Shiro offers what he hopes is a friendly smile. “I’m Shiro.”

Keith looks at him flatly before pulling out some tape. “I know.”

 _So prickly,_ Shiro muses.

“And I know _you_.” Shiro looks Keith over. Decides to be a little brazen. “I’ve seen your fights.”

“And?” It’s almost a challenge.

“And what?”

Keith almost rolls his eyes. “What did you think?”

“You’re… unpredictable,” Shiro says, trying to be diplomatic. When Keith just stares at him with eyebrows raised, Shiro huffs out a laugh. “Fine. You’re volatile. You constantly deviate from standard protocols and combat techniques. You take risks that put you, your crew, and your surroundings in danger. You couldn’t hold a partner for more than a year.”

Keith snorts, rolls his eyes. “I have a ten-kill hit list.”

“I know.” Shiro grins. “I never said you weren’t good.”

Red blooms high on Keith’s cheeks before he can turn away. “Flattery’s gonna get you nowhere.”

Shiro just laughs again. “Allura said you had a hand in picking out my co-pilot candidates.”

Keith shrugs, starts to wrap his hands.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Shiro says, and heads back to his room.

 

There are four co-pilot candidates lined up. Allura’s vetted them herself. They’re well-trained and highly skilled. Shiro knocks all of them down to the mat with ease, in thirty minutes total.

Allura is unimpressed. Their audience murmurs in appreciation, admiration. There’s just one person that Shiro’s looking for, though.

(The red jacket tied around his waist is a dead giveaway.)

“Can we change this up?” Shiro asks loudly, turning to Allura where she stands at the head of the room. “Because this is getting us nowhere.”

“Do you have any suggestions?” she asks pointedly.

“Actually, I do.” Shiro adjusts his grip on the stave, swinging it round to point directly at Keith, who’s been standing at the back of the room. “How about we let him try?”

Allura narrows her eyes, just a little. “He’s our Jaeger mechanic.”

“And he’s wasted being stuck back here.” Shiro stands firm, holds her gaze. “You know how good he is.”

Allura stares him down. Shiro holds his ground. Then she sighs, turns to Keith. “Do you want to?”

Keith looks from Allura to Shiro, pursing his lips. Shiro looks right back in a challenge.

After a long moment, Keith pushes lithely off the wall, tugs his jacket off his waist.

“Fine.”

 

The room falls silent as Keith sets his boots at the edge of the mat, stave light in his hand. He walks up to and past Shiro, shoulders back, head high.

“Remember, this is about _compatibility_. It’s a dialogue, not a fight.” Shiro takes his place at the other end of the mat, smirking. “But I’m not gonna dial down my moves.”

“Good.” Keith’s answering grin is more feral, bared teeth. “Neither will I.”

 

Shiro moves first. Keith lets him. The stave stops a hair’s breadth from Keith’s forehead, but he doesn’t even flinch.

“One,” Shiro says quietly.

There is the space of a breath, then Keith’s knocked Shiro’s stave out of the way. He ducks around and Keith’s weapon is at Shiro’s throat.

“One-one,” Keith says, and there’s a smirk somewhere in that tone.

_You’re on._

  


Keith fights like he pilots a Jaeger: fast, reckless, intense. He’s quick, stronger than Shiro expected. His approach makes Shiro think of a scrap fight in a back alley, bruised knuckles and a cut on the cheek.

Shiro does combat like in his own Jaeger: grounded, tactical, a solid and unwavering force. He keeps himself braced against Keith’s attacks, watches for openings and covers. Patience yields focus. Strategy yields victory.

Needless to say, they are evenly matched, and it’s exhilarating.

  


By the time Allura calls a stop to the fight, it’s four-three to Keith. Both of them are breathing heavily; Keith’s hair tied high and Shiro’s matted to his forehead. There’s a spot on Shiro’s ribs that’ll bruise in the morning.

But Keith’s smirk is echoed by the satisfaction ringing in Shiro’s body as they look at each other across the mat, so it’s worth it.

  


Here are their truths:

Keith carries anger with him like the knife strapped to his right thigh. He holds too many things close to his chest and resents having people in his head. Fury is an excellent mask for insecurity and fear. When you have lost too much, you remake yourself so that you keep no one and nothing, so you have nothing to lose anymore.

Shiro carries guilt with him written in the scars on his body, the raw edges of skin bitten into by metal and plastic. He wields it like a shield, lets it pool in his lungs. For all that he objectively knows it was not his fault, the thought still imprisons him with its weight. Self-destruction is not redemption but he doesn’t know what else to do.

 

Here is what they do

Shiro stands beside Keith and teaches him that he doesn’t have to fight the world on his own, that there is more than enough to him and it is worth every effort.

Keith unspools Shiro’s brokenness and shame and says, I am staying right here, because Shiro is what he is and it is still worth everything.

 

In the drift, there is nothing you can hide.

But with everything between them, ragged edges and faint hope, they make it work.

  


The first time they hold the neural handshake successfully, the first time the Voltron Jaeger comes back to life -- the first time Shiro sees Keith laugh, head thrown back and carefree -- it makes the struggle worth it.

Shiro looks over at Keith and winks. “Let’s kick some Kaiju ass.”

Keith’s answering grin is like the sun.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! Come visit me on Twitter as [@okw_tr](https://twitter.com/okw_tr) and Tumblr as [plstskys](https://plstskys.tumblr.com) and say hi. You can also check there for my commission details and for ways to support my writing ^u^


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